Top 15 James Thomson Quotes

Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, When drooping health and spirits go amiss?
How tasteless then whatever can be given! Health is the vital principle of bliss,
And exercise, of health.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve.
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.

Their only labour was to kill the time;
And labour dire it is, and weary woe,
They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme,
Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go,
Or saunter forth, with tottering steps and slow.

A little, round, fat, oily man of God.

A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard becomes Who void of envy, guile and lust of gain,
On virtue still and nature's pleasing themes Poured forth his unpremeditated strain.

But what most showed the vanity of life
Was to behold the nations all on fire.

Plac'd far amid the melancholy main.

O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace.

He ceased; but still their trembling ears retained
The deep vibrations of his witching song.

The best of men have ever loved repose: They hate to mingle in the filthy fray;
Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows, Imbitter'd more from peevish day to day.

They who are pleased themselves must always please.

A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky:
There eke the soft delights that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh;
But whate'er smack'd of noyance or unrest
Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest.

Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thulè, and th' Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.

For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn.

He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.